Abstract
The nature of age differences among young (university students) and old persons (retirement village residents) in the content of reminiscences, especially themes involving transitional life events, was the focus of this investigation. Overall the findings indicate more similarities than differences between age groups. Events of a non-transitional nature are the most common theme with only about one-third of the subjects recalling a transitional life event. Memories tend to be pleasant and vividly experienced, frequently involve memories recently on the subject's mind and do not cluster in any particular time period. In addition, the content of memories is not related to subject variables. A mood/context-memory matching hypothesis is proposed to account for the recall of particular types of memories.
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